


the faded notion of happiness

by thunder_and_stars



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: c05e06 A Crown of Candy: Chaos in the Cathedral, Episode: c05e09 A Crown of Candy: Safe Harbor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/thunder_and_stars
Summary: It was a ridiculous notion, of course; he was a fool for ever thinking he could be happy.
Relationships: Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker & Jet Rocks & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	the faded notion of happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for ACoC through episode nine, though I feel like we're getting to the point where that's barely a spoiler anymore.

Liam Wilhelmina was nobody. He had so many brothers, and he simply got lost in everything, unnoticed and uncared for. 

He was sent to Castle Candy as a ward. He was not sent because anyone noticed how he was treated, or because anyone had any faith in him and his abilities. He was sent as a ward, unwanted and unnoticed, sent to heal tenuous political ties he did not care for.

Few people there spoke to him, saw him, cared about his existence at all. 

Sir Theobald Gumbar --  _ Theo _ , he insisted,  _ call me Theo _ \-- seemed to notice Liam. He was busy, often, but he was kind and friendly in a way that was terribly unfamiliar to Liam. Nearly everyone else left Liam alone, as if he wasn’t real. That was okay. He was certain that they all hated him anyway.

Liam spent most of his time outside of the castle. He probably wasn’t supposed to run off, but nobody stopped him. He was a ranger, after all, and he loved the woods. Preston, his amazing pig, his only friend, liked the woods too. They found seeds together.

He would leave messages for Sir Theo when he left. Sir Theo had asked him to not just run off without telling anyone, but he was always too busy for Liam to tell him, and nobody else cared. So, he settled for leaving messages for Sir Theo to find. It was enough.

He spent most of his time in the woods. Liam was a seed guy. He was not a war guy, and he was not a people person. He was just Liam ( _ he hated Just Liam _ ).

He wished he could be like the princesses, wished his siblings were like that. The twin princesses, Jet and Ruby, were so  _ happy _ . They were his age, just teenagers, and they ran wild as much as they could in the overbearing constraints of their family and the castle.

They showed him what siblings were supposed to act like. But that was them. He wasn’t part of that, the secrets and hugs and Twinspeak and sneaking off into Dulcington at any possible time. He wasn’t meant to be part of that.

He wasn’t meant to be happy.

Liam had Preston, and that was enough. He was okay.

But Jet -- well, she wasn’t nice, exactly, that wasn’t her style -- noticed him. She spoke to him, in her bold and not-quite-kind way, but she proved he was real. She  _ saw _ him.

Ruby was kinder, quieter, gentler. She was there when Liam needed help, when he needed something softer than Jet’s constant chaos and top volume. They were different, the twins, but they were also the same, and they worked so well together. They were happy.

Liam liked them. 

They were the first people to be kind to him, and he liked their company. He thought they might not hate him. That was so wonderfully refreshing and new to him.

On the road from Castle Candy, he sat near King Amethar, watching the world they passed by. He was there because he was King Amethar’s ward, because Queen Caramelinda did not want to deal with him. That was fair, he thought. It wasn’t her job to handle him, and he must be terribly exhausting to handle, with the way everyone didn’t care for him.

He watched the world carefully. He was a wanderer, and explorer, a traveller. He knew how to navigate. 

The people steering the carriages clearly  _ did not _ . They had made so many wrong turns. Some of them --  _ some _ \-- were easily forgiven, more of a personal choice than an incorrect option. After the most recent one -- Liam gave up on counting early on -- he remarked upon this to King Amethar. He was hesitant to do so, afraid the King would be upset, but King Amethar just smiled.

“Next time,” he told Liam, “We’ll have you lead.”

Liam smiled slightly.

Everything turned bad so fast.

Ruby, being Ruby --  _ Ruby Rocks, master acrobatess _ \-- climbed onto the roof of the carriage, doing a handstand. Jet leaned out the window, hand on Ruby’s. She was always there to catch her sister. Liam wished he had that.

The path they were supposed to turn down far behind them, they stopped short, a felled tree easily blocking their path. Ruby was falling, arrow through her neck, the sickly sweet scent of candy blood reaching Liam.

He didn’t do much in the fighting that ensued. Jet, ready to fight for her downed sister, was beside her father, the two of them easily slicing through enemies. Sir Theo, always the knight, fought with them. Lapin did, well, whatever he did. Liam didn’t quite understand Lapin. Everyone was injured by the end.

Ruby did magic. Lapin was quick to dismiss it, easily turning down the heat of the situation. They were all okay.

Liam felt useless. He was useless. He couldn’t even help the people he cared about.

Jet and Ruby stayed close, after that. They slowly pushed him away, little by little, until it was just them, the twins, safe and together. He understood. He wouldn’t want him around either.

There were other things that happened, many things, things that Liam barely kept track of.

In Comida, the twins spent more time with him again. They were surrounded by royals and important people, mainly adults. The kids stuck together.

They started teaching him Twinspeak. He felt unbelievably honored.

Then the Grand Tourney came, and the events of it handedly wrecked his world. He did archery with Ruby, and they were happy, cheering each other on. They saw Sir Theo joust, and they watched Jet and King Amethar as they fought.

It was nice, which meant something was bound to go horribly, earthshakingly wrong. He was learning, now, to expect that. And, as always, it did.

The King was stabbed. He disqualified himself from the match. He fell. Liam watched, unsure of what to do, how to help. He couldn’t help. He was useless.

He cast Hunter’s Mark on someone -- he wasn’t even sure who, really, just that they had hurt someone who he believed mattered.

They tried to play it off, like they had with Ruby. It didn’t work. Liam wasn’t good with people, and he was panicked, and he wasn’t a princess, and they weren’t in Candia anymore.

It was bad.

King Amethar, later, healing, had said he had done the right thing. He said Liam had saved his life. Liam didn’t believe him.

It didn’t matter. He could run, probably. He could try, at least. Nobody would care, if he left. They would probably give him over to the Church if he stayed.

He had done magic, after all.

But he couldn’t run. He couldn’t leave all of this behind.

Someone told him he was family. They said they would protect him. He couldn’t think. His mind was spinning, panic and relief and abject terror and warmth from being part of something, being seen, flooded through him.

They did, unsurprisingly, come for him. They took him to a cell.

Sir Theo went with him. He wasn’t certain why. He didn’t ask. He could pretend it was because they cared about him, if he didn’t ask. If he didn’t hear the truth, that it was nothing of the sort.

He was good at pretending people cared about him, even when he knew they hated him.

When the battle in the cathedral happened, something in Liam broke. 

Lapin, who Liam had never understood, who turned out to be a good man, far better than Liam, was dead. He stepped in front of Liam, saved him.

Preston was gone. That too was Liam’s fault -- it was always Liam’s fault, he couldn’t do  _ anything _ , he was only good for getting his friends killed.

They were outside. Liam wasn’t sure how they had gotten there. There was something involved with breaking a window, which he thought he had tried to help with, but he was numb. Everything that happened seemed so far away, so impossibly distant and surreal, and Liam was hollow. 

He remembered Jet, arms around him, the feeling of falling. Then they were in the alley outside. There was yelling, so much yelling. They had to go.

Liam couldn’t tear his eyes away from the windows. Preston was (dead) in there. They had left Lapin. The shadows on the stained glass moved, then there was a horrendous spray of chocolate across something meant to be holy and a terrible  _ crunch _ , and Liam broke.

They were running. His ribs were shattered, screaming in pain as the jagged edges of bones ground together, but they had to run, keep running, don’t stop don’t look back, don’t  _ think. _ He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and then he was in a memory, and he was sobbing, but he couldn’t stop.

They were following Jet (when had that happened?) and stumbled into an alley. There was a man there, an avocado man with an awful accent and bleary eyes. Nobody looked at Liam, spared him a gaze, a glance, a thought. Nobody cared.

That was fine with him. He didn’t deserve anything.

He should have died.

Jet was talking to the man, some weird shenanigans that definitely made sense for Jet, with Theo occasionally chiming in, trying to be helpful. Liam couldn’t think -- don’t think, don’t breathe, don’t  _ stop  _ \-- and he stepped forward, entire body protesting, and slammed his fist into the man’s face.

He was crying, still, bleeding and aching, and he didn’t fully process what he was doing as he did it. Everyone was staring at him, Liam Wilhelmina --  _ seed guy, not a war guy _ \-- on death’s door, sobbing, violent and wild.

His only friend was dead. A good man died for him. He was nothing.

He was broken, sharp edges and shattered glass.

They ended up stowing away on a ship, and, as everything else had, it turned bad, so bad, so fast. 

He disappeared into the darkness instantly, praying he could do something, anything -- he was the only one prepared for this battle, with his shadows and his bow and his natural aptitude with difficult terrain.

He did all he could.

It was barely enough, not really even that. One person died, one of the crew of the ship. Annabelle and Primsy were alright, thanks to Jet, mostly. Sir Theo almost drowned, and Liam could not do anything to help him. He tried.

Ruby did well, tied herself to the rigging and swung around wildly with her bow -- she really was the acrobat she claimed to be -- and at the end, there was a new man, a cotton candy monk with dark eyes, but they were all still there, what was left of the people he almost dared to call family. (He can’t bring himself to.)

The twins liked Primsy and Annabelle. He liked them as well. They all got along fairly well. 

They were okay.

He thought he might be happy, even after everything, as they made it back to Castle Candy. The twins took him with them on their missions to snoop through their mother’s things, and they found a letter.

They snuck into Dulcington in the dark of night, to the store Jet knew concerningly well. They wended their way through the empty shop, into the attic. 

Jet and Ruby were smiling, pleased with their teenage antics. Liam was happy. He had found a new family here, in his cousins ( _ his sisters _ ).

They made it to the attic. It was dark, but Liam could see. The twins were still smiling.

Liam was  _ not. _

He could see the faint glow of eyes in the shadows, artificial darkvision, and he knew this would not end well. He acted before anything could happen.

He regretted it almost immediately.

He fired candy bolts from his crossbow, doing as much as he could, alerting the twins. Then, he hid, disappearing into the shadows. He hated his choices.

Ruby and Jet let out twin cries as water blade daggers pierced their bodies, Jet falling to her knees even as she dealt damage to one of them. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

He knew this was bad, he knew the twins couldn’t see in the dark, should have known they were after the princesses, and he hid, leaving them exposed and defenseless. He shouldn’t have.

Jet managed to choke out a cry for Ruby to run, and Ruby, tears in her eyes, turned invisible and fled. Liam grabbed Jet, cast a spell, pulled them into his tiny extradimensional space, and held back tears of his own, his dying friend in his arms.

As they sat there, in the terrible dark, waiting, something in him splintered into so many pieces he knew he couldn’t patch it back together. He was an idiot, he knew. They all were, really, just stupid teenagers in the middle of the night, coming here.

How could he have been so stupid? It was a silly, childish idea. It was a ridiculous notion, of course; he was a fool for ever thinking he could be happy.

He would never be happy.

He didn’t deserve to be, not after failing everyone who mattered. Nor did he deserve to grieve the people he didn’t save, should have saved. He could have saved them if he was a better person.

He did all he could. He placed Jet’s body, wrapped in garments he found in the store, in a cabinet, with a solemn promise to return for her. He took her blade and her locket, for Ruby and King Amethar to have. 

He found them at the base of the wall, crying together, both bleeding horribly, water corroding the blood inside them. They were the lucky ones, he thought. 

He held back his tears. He handed the locket to Ruby. She was sobbing, the light in the one clasped around her neck agonizingly absent. She pressed it back into his hands.

“It needs another person, another half,” she told him. “Keep it. Jet would have wanted you to have it.”

He tried to protest. 

“It needs another half,” she repeated, and he felt the shattered edges in him grind together, pain flaring through his chest, his heart, his soul. 

_ I need my other half _ , she didn’t say.

_ I tried to save her _ , he didn’t say.  _ I should have done better. _

He took the locket.

He didn’t deserve it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.


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